One idle
afternoon he had sowed the seeds of a little storm in the heart of a
woman, and a whirlwind was driving through her life to parch and make
desolate the green fields of her youth and womanhood. He had loitered
and dallied without motive; but the idle and unmeaning sinner is the most
dangerous to others and to himself, and he realised it at that moment,
so far as it was in him to realise anything of the kind.
Sophie's figure as it left the room had that drooping, beaten look which
only comes to the stricken and the incurably humiliated.
"What have you said to her?" asked Christine of Ferrol, "what have you
done to her?"
"I didn't do a thing, upon my soul. I didn't say a thing. She'd only
just come in."
"What did she say to you?"
"As near as I can remember, she said: 'You have been hurt, and I'm very
sorry. Why haven't you been to see me? I looked for you; but you didn't
come, and I thought you had forgotten me.'"
"What did she mean by that? How dared she!"
"See here, Christine," he said, laying his hand on her quivering
shoulder, "I didn't say much to her. I was over there one afternoon, the
afternoon I asked you to marry me. I drank a lot of liqueur; she looked
very pretty, and before she had a chance to say yes or no about it I
kissed her.
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